CCLaP's latest original book, the youth/war novella Too Young to Fall Asleep by Sally Weigel, is now available. Click here for a lot more about it, and to start the purchasing/downloading process.
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July 15, 2009
Justify My Netflix: Choke
(Like many Netflix customers, I too can get quite lax with the timely watching and returning of my movies, which of course defeats the entire purpose of having a flat-rate rental plan in the first place. To combat that, I am now writing standardized mini-reviews of each and every movie I end up watching through Netflix, both instantly and on DVD. Don't forget, all previous 'Justify My Netflix' reviews can be found on CCLaP's main movie page.)
Why I added it to my queue: Because it's the latest high-profile adaptation of a novel by "Master of the Uncomfortable" Chuck Palahniuk; and I'm a big huge fan of Palahniuk so am willing to watch just about any adaptation of his work ever made.
The reality: A Palahniuk story re-imagined as a zany scatological comedy? Yeah, just as disastrously wrong as it sounds, kind of like trying to make some ultra-dark New French Extremity point about rape by having the female victim fart in the middle of one. Ugh -- talk about a movie too horrible to even waste time railing against.
Strangest piece of trivia: The entire thing was shot in three weeks. Gee, really?
Worth your time? Good Lord, no
Filed by Jason Pettus at 1:43 PM, July 15, 2009. Filed under: Movies | Reviews |
Comments
I agree with Jason, I loved this book and hated this film. With Sam Rockwell, Angelica Houston, and Kelly MacDonald, there was really no excuse whatsoever for this to end up being the piece of utter shit it was.
In the interest of full disclosure, my wife once dated Clark Gregg, so there's perhaps some deeper reason for me to dislike the film in general, but let me tell you, the only thing that could possibly make me feel OK about a man whom my wife used to date making a film out of one of my favorite books by one of my favorite authors starring two of my favorite young actors is the fact that he made an absolute mess of the entire thing. I don't know whether to feel savagely satisfied by his failure, or bitterly sad because we've probably lost our one chance at getting a good film made out of this outstanding book.
I humbly disagree. I really enjoyed Choke. I was surprised how much I liked it. It is not the same as the book, but I liked the adaptation. The discussion (on the special features) of the director and Chuck Palahniuk was really interesting.
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